Welcome all! On my blog you will find comprehensive information on where to find notable rare spawns and unique hunter pets along with some of my own experience looking for them. I have screen shots, maps with locations and fraps videos of each rare. Have a look around and enjoy! ^-^

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Captain Foulwind is a level 81 non-elite rare spawn located on a ship floating in the water above the Shimmering Expanse just south of Nespirah. He is only hostile toward Alliance players. Horde's version of this NPC is Captain Florence who spawns in the Alliance ship east of Captain Foulwind. He is not a flagged npc, so killing him will not flag you on a non-pvp server. Captain Foulwind doesn't drop anything of value, not even a decent amount of gold. He generally drops around 2g, and sometimes embersilk cloth or grey items. He does offer a very decent amount of experience though for players leveling in the area; approximately 42k xp non-rested at level 82. If your level 85 and you come across this guy, don't bother killing him, you really have nothing to gain.

The fight with him is simple, he has a couple of rogue abilities including sinister strike and mutilate. There is also an add with him that will engage. Anyone leveling in the area shouldn't have much trouble getting him down.

Terror Spinner is a level 76 rare elite spider with approximately 16.5k health. He can be found on the eastern side of Zul'Drak in several different locations which are indicated in red below. He is one of four rare spawns that can be found in Zul'drak. The other three are Griegen, Gondria and Zul'drak Sentinel.

This npc is part of the Northern Exposure and Frostbitten achievements. He drops Calcified Web Spaulders which is a level 74 bind on equip mail shoulder item with a random enchant. Like other Northrend rares, he also drops Abandoned Adventurer's Satchel, which generally contains about 20 gold, a full stack of frostweave cloth, and often times a few crystallized elements.

Terror Spinner is also a tamable hunter pet. Please note that because it is also a hunter pet that even though you may not have seen Terror Spinner before, it doesn't mean that it isn't already cached by NPCScan. If a hunter has this tamed pet out near you, your NPCScan will cache it. If it is cached in NPCScan and this rare is up your alert will not go off. Be sure to check and clear your cache often!

Also, please have some courtesy. If you come across this mob and a hunter is in the process of taming it - leave them be. Hunters, in order to lessen the chances of someone snagging this guy while you are taming, hit him first so that you tag him. If a passer-by notices that the mob is grey'd out they are probably more likely to continue on their way.

Terror Spinner only has a couple of abilities. They are Impairing poison, which slows casting by 50% and movement speed by 50% for 10 seconds, and Instant poison which deals nature damage. When tamed his special ability is a web which prevents targets from moving for 5 seconds.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Burgy Blackheart is a lvl 81 non-elite rare spawn with approximately 55k health. He is located at 57,70 in the Shimmering Expanse just south of Nespirah. The location is shown below in green. Burgy drops an incredibly fun vanity item called Burgy Blackheart's Handsome Hat which can be equipped in place of your normal helmet to make your character look like the one depicted in the screen shot below. The hat will make your character and all of your mounts slightly transparent and larger.

Here are a couple videos of Burgy Blackheart walking around his sunken ship. I didn't kill him here because I already had the hat he drops. The fight with him is quite trivial, he has an ability called Brittle Touch that reduces your armor to zero. He will also shoot you with Parrley! and has one melee attack called Swashbuckling Slice. Neither hit very hard.

The spawn timer on Burgy seems pretty reasonable. He generally tends to re-appear anywhere from 6 - 24 hours after he was last killed. While searching for Poseidus I've come across him at least 3 times without really looking for him.

Shok'sharak is a non-elite level 82 Faceless one rare spawn with approximately 67k health who spawns in the Abyssal Depths in Vash'jir. He can be found in a few locations in the Scalding Chasm which is south of Promontory Point. The locations are shown below in green. As you can see on the map, I found him at the western most spawn location.

Shok'sharak drops Sussurating Treads of Shok'sharak, a nice bind on equip item level 346 plate caster boots. On my server they sell for approximately 400-500 gold. He also drops around 20 gold and for leveling characters killing him yields a hefty amount of experience (around 50k xp non-rested at level 82).

He is a very trivial mob with no crazy special abilities. He does a mind flay, shadow crash and a shadow nova. Anyone questing in this zone should have no issues killing him.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Jadefang is a non-elite, non-aggressive tamable rare found in Deepholm who if killed drops the Tiny Sale Spider companion pet. Here is a screenshot below of the Tiny Shale Spider pet. Please note that Jadefang can also be tamed by hunters.

The spawn timer on Jadefang seems to be between approximately 6-12 hours.

Jadefang can be found at 61.3, 22 in Deepholm in the Crumbling Depths. In the screenshot below the tiny blue square on the map indicates where this is. The entrance is located at 58.3, 25.8. Note: It is possible for NPCScan to pick up Jadefang while not inside the tunnel. Mine went off once while I was flying toward Therazan's Throne just above the spawn point.

Jadefang is not an easy rare to get to. There are only a few ways to get to Jadefang. Probably the easiest way is to get the Underground Economy daily quest from Ricket. This is a goblin NPC located just inside the Crumbling Depths. (This quest will only become available after you have completed the entire quest line in Deepholm leading up to the Therazane dailies.) You will need the Bombs from this quest to get to Jadefang. This daily quest is not available every day. I actually recommend grabbing this quest when it is up and coming back on a day when it isn't. This makes it a little less likely that other people will be able to get to Jadefang on that day. Follow the path further inside, once you are past the Colossal Gyreworm you will be in a large chamber. Head into the tunnel on the right side (see screen shot below).

Once you are inside that tunnel keep to the left until you get to a ledge and the scenery looks like what is pictured below. (This is also the same ledge pictured in the screen shot above, however in that screen shot it is looking directly at it straight on.)

This is where you will need the bombs you got from Ricket. You are going to have to use them to throw yourself into the cave. You will need to place a bomb on the ground in front of you. When the bomb detonates, it will knock you away from it at a high speed and height. What you are going to need to do is place the bomb directly in front of you while your back is facing Jadefang's cave. You can face the cave or face the bomb, it doesn't mater so long as you are close to the bomb, and between the bomb and Jadefang's cave. The closer you are to the edge, the better shot you have at getting where you want to be. Spamming your jump button does nothing here, all that matters is placement. Please see the video below demonstrating the jump from the ledge and the kill.

I have read that engineers can get to Jadefang as well with their Rocket Boots when they malfunction and that Goblins can use their Rocket Jump racial. These methods require a lot more time and practice (and luck) to get right. I personally recommend the bomb method.

I also helped a friend get to Jadefang recently that didn't have the daily by dying just outside Jadefang's cave entrance with my night elf priest. I rezzed on the ledge and used my Leap of Faith to pull her to me.

For your viewing pleasure I have another video below that demonstrates how NPCScan and Silverdragon will both pick up Jadefang from outside the cave and exactly how to get to him.

I posted a very similar post in my other blog Find Aeonaxx devoted to finding the rare spawn Aeonaxx in Deepholm. I cannot stress enough that NPC scan is an absolute necessity if you plan on hunting rare spawns. I have tried other addons with the same purpose, but I always come back to NPCScan. You can download it from Curse.com. I also highly recommend downloading NPCScan.Overlay as well. (NPCScan.Overlay adds an overlay to your map which displays where rare mobs patrol.) In the screenshot below you can see an example of this. The colorful areas are where different rares can be found, and in the bottom left hand of your screen it will tell you the name of the rare spawn using a nice color code to tell you which mob patrols in each area. When a rare is found you will be able tell the approximate location that it has been found right on your map because a small, almost transparent circle will appear in the color associated with the particular npc. As you can see below I found Shok'sharak in the western spawn location in Promontory Point.

What NPCScan does is track rarely seen mobs in the game by proximity. When a rare npc is found npcscan checks your creature cache and the mob becomes "cached". It is extremely important that you clear your cache often. Npcscan will NOT be able to find a cached npc again until your cache has been cleared. Although kind of annoying, clearing your cache is relatively simple.

To clear your cache:

Exit World of Warcraft.

Delete the “Cache” sub-directory inside your World of Warcraft folder. For example on a standard Windows XP installation, you would delete the folder “C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Cache”.

When npcscan finds a rare spawn it will alert you with a loud sound. (I prefer to keep mine on the default setting.) Your screen will also pulse red and an animated button will appear displaying the name of the rare spawn and a small picture of it. When you click on the animated button npcscan will attempt targeting the rare spawn. I made a short fraps video testing the found alert below.

VIEW DISTANCE:

Make sure you have your view distance set to "ULTRA" when possible while hunting for rares. If your video card can draw an npc your NPCScan will go off. If your settings are too low you could potentially miss rares you would have otherwise found.

When you're ready to begin the hunt for rares NPCScan should look just like the one in the screenshot below. Notice how there are no red x's under the cached column. If you see a red x next to the particular mob(s) that you are looking for, follow the steps above to clear your cache.

Here is an example below that has several cached npcs, also notice the green check marks under the "Done" column. Those check marks show that you have killed those particular mobs required for the Frostbitten and Bloody Rare achievements. After you clear your cache, the green check marks will still remain but do not effect whether or not NPCScan will go off if it finds a rare.

Remember, DON'T FORGET TO CLEAR YOUR CACHE!! If a rare mob spawns, is within range of you and has been cached, NPCScan will not go off.

One Other very important piece of information I'd like to add is IF YOU TAB OUT OF THE GAME YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO HEAR NPCSCAN IF IT GOES OFF IF YOU ARE NOT IN WINDOWED MODE. Even if you have "Sound in Background" checked off in your options menu. If you're planning on sitting your character on a spawn point or patrol location of a rare and then tabbing out and browsing the web, this is not an option. I learned this the hard way when I was camping for Aeonaxx on my husbands toon. He had tabbed out of the game to research something on the web. When we got back into the game Npcscan's animated Aeonaxx button was right there in the middle of his screen, the alert was going off, his screen was flashing red and general chat was all about who downed Aeonaxx. We won't make that mistake again... In windowed mode however, you will be able to hear it if your tabbed out, it's in the background, and it does go off.